Good Day! The Home-Schooled Otaku does apologize for not posting for so long. I... I really don't have an excuse except that I'm uber lazy.
Today's Japanese word is: "Hetare" (Spineless; useless; pathetic; wimpy - in a cute or endearing way) {Pronounced: Hey-tah-ray}
Today we will be talking about the anime/manga/webcomic HETALIA.
The Hetalia series allegorically* misrepresents World War II and various other historical and political events with comedy and light innuendo here and there. Countries are personified as people (mainly cute, young men and women), given personalities and appearances based upon popular stereotypes, and political alliances are represented by social and romantic relationships. Alliances are represented as countries becoming "friends" and going to live at each others houses. For instance, Italy, Germany, and Japan all became buddies and started World War II.
The series' title is a combination of Italia - the Italian pronunciation of the country's name, and our Japanese Word of the Day (seen above) - Hetare (which in essence is a term for a lovable loser) to make the word Hetalia. Italy is the series main protagonist, though the country is split up into two separate characters.
Italy Veneziano, the north of the country,is the protagonist character and is portrayed as an annoying, but endearing Nancy boy, who will surrender at the slightest provocation with the wave of one of his many white flags.
Italy Romano is his older twin brother, the south of the country; Romano is foul mouthed, short tempered and can be extremely jealous, especially when Italy says nice things about his buddy Germany. It would seem that the one thing Romano shares in common with his brother, apart from their adamant love of pizza, pasta and women, is the curl in there hair (which characterizes every Italiano in the series) and the fact that neither of them will ever understand how a grenade works.
To distinguish, Veneziano is normally simply referred to as "Italy", and his twin is referred to as "Romano".
The brother's were split up when they were kids in the Fourteenth Century. Italy was taken to Holy Roman Empire's house with Austria and Hungary, and did all the housework, while Romano was raised by his older brother Spain, who introduced the tomato to Italy.
Germany is Italy's best buddy in the whole world. And by buddy, I of course mean "baby sitter". Germany is tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and strict. Sometimes he's a bit of a kill-joy, but Italy would be lost without him, and Germany doesn't have any other friends. Germany first started taking care of Italy after World War I, and then when WW2 rolled around, Italy sided with Germany then too, even if Germany did put potatoes in pretty much everything he cooked.
Japan was a mystery to everyone when he came into the story with his shiny black hair and dull brown eyes. Up until about seventy years before the second world war, Japan had locked himself in his room and didn't want to talk to anyone unless they had a cute animal with them. But then, America changed that, and Japan pulled himself up by his bootstraps and kicked Russia's butt in the Russo-Japanese war, instating himself as a force to be reckoned with. Then he became friends with Germany and Italy to form the Axis Powers. He may have made friends now, but their cultures are very different, and Japan is constantly suffering from culture shock.
And that's just the Axis. I could continue on to America, and his constant insistence that he's the HERO!; England* and his bushy eyebrows and nasty food; France and his silly accent, constantly bickering with UK; Russia, who has the innocence and cruelty of a child, having cracked from his bloody history; and China, a wonderful cook, but rebellious, who fights the Axis with his mighty wok and ladle!
Or to the Germanic nations such as uptight and slightly foppish Mr. Austria, who expresses anger with Chopin; Miss Hungary, a woman who knows how to take care of herself and is Austria's ex-wife; Switzerland, who remains neutral in all things, and constantly arms himself with a rifle; Liechtenstein, Switzerland's adoptive little sister who depends on him fore everything and is always grateful to him; and Prussia, Germany's awesome red-eyed, silver-haired older brother who admittedly is kind of a bully and has a diary dating as far back as the 14th Century.
Russia used to have a family called the Soviet Union, but they broke up sometime ago. It included Russia's older sister, Ukraine, who is very nice, but really plain. She's poor, so she has to farm all the time, and is usually targeted by other countries because her bust is so huge. Then there's Russia's little sister, Miss Belarus, who is very pretty but kind of a psycho. She loves her big brother a lot... in fact she loves him a little too much and regularly breaks down doors and tries to make him marry her. And don't forget the Baltic States - Quiet Estonia, timid Lithuania, and poor little Latvia, who is short because, for some reason, Russia always presses down on Latvia's head whenever he comes home. We're not quite sure where Poland belongs, but we are sure that he's a brat... and unlucky... and likes to dress as a girl.
Oh yeah, and there are those great Mediterranean nations, Greece and Turkey who are always at each others' throats. Not quite sure why that is... oh wait, it could be that Turkey ruled Greece from the 15th century until 1821. But for whatever reason Greece and Turkey hate each other, and it doesn't help that both they, and Mr. Holland* all want to be Japan's best friend. And Mr. Holland is a scary dude.
Let's see, who else is there? Ah there are too many countries in the world. Don't just take my word for it, look the series up. So far the series has been adapted into a manga* and hit anime series with two seasons (Hetalia: Axis Powers, and Hetalia World Series), and a third season, Hetalia: The Wonderful World is on its way. As is, the first two seasons were dubbed by the great FUNimation Entertainment and feature a great variety of special features, and a colourful and talented cast including the great J. Michael Tatum, Todd Haberkorn, and Brina Palencia.
In 2009, October 24th* , was selected by fans of Hetalia to be the day they celebrated the anime, gathering in various places all around the world to share fan-art, doujinshi*, fan-fiction, and various other hand-crafty projects, as well as sport cos-plays of the characters. It has been celebrated every year since, and events always take place on the 24th (or the weekend closest, if the 24th falls on a weekday). In 2012, I celebrated Hetalia Day by crocheting the the flags of 35 of the countries, nations, states and kingdoms (both existing and dissolved) featured in the series in the 40 days and 40 nights leading up to the big day - a truly Biblical undertaking.
Until we meet again, this is the Christian, Home-Schooled Otaku signing off.
Footnotes_________________________________________________________________
Allegory - an allegory is a story in which the characters are representations of idea's objects or places. Such as countries and stuff.
England - This character is called "England" in the Japanese version, but to try and save the series from being the most politically incorrect thing ever (too late), it was changed to United Kingdom for the American release. This doesn't quite work however, because the character represents England only, and not the entire United Kingdom: Scotland is once mentioned on his own and is therefore a separate entity. Northern Ireland and Wales haven't been mentioned at all so far.
Holland - Though the nation is officially known as the "Kingdom of the Netherlands", most Dutch people actually prefer to call their country Holland, as "The Netherlands" is also the name of one of the sovereign states within the nation, and thus it is simply less confusing to call it Holland. Its rather similar to the way Scottish people really don't like to be called "British" in spite of the fact that Scotland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Hetalia Day - It is not uncommon for fans of the anime industry to select certain days to celebrate certain animes and characters. For instance, October 3rd was christened "Fullmetal Alchemist Day", commemorating the day that the series' protagonists, the Elric Brothers, began their epic journey. In 2011 it was given an entire week --as the date was exactly as it is inscribed in Edward's pocket watch: "Don't forget, 3rd, Oct. Year 11-- and advertised by Vic Mignogna, Ed's American voice actor.
October 24th - If you look on certain calenders, you will find that October 24th is known as United Nations' Day by normal people. We anime freaks have turned it into a holiday I would actually like to celebrate.
